Destinations

Candy-colored cocktails sipped in seaside watering holes. Carefree days followed by calypso-flavored nights. These are the siren songs that lure anyone with a yacht and a yearning to escape to the incomparable Caribbean Islands. Whether you’re sailing through turquoise waters, lazing on powdery white beaches, the glamorous harbors and unknown coves of this area remain a hidden treasure.

Introducing Island Experience
Introducing our new Island Experiences in the Caribbean – part of the complimentary Private Event program launching around the world in 2015. These experiences seek to treat guests to the feeling of having their “own private island” for the day, with each Windstar Caribbean itinerary including an Island Experience Private Event. All Island Experience Private Events will offer fun in the sun beach and sport activities such as snorkeling, bocce ball, and volleyball with the chance to face the Captain and officers in a tournament. Indulge in the full beach barbeque with dishes including lobster and shrimp mac-n-cheese, “surfs up” tequila lobster tacos, Cajun jambalaya, a full burger bar, and more.

Natural and man-made wonders combine in this exotic region. Learn more about area history, flora and fauna from a local Naturalist on board your yacht. The waters of Corcovado National Park are teeming with diverse undersea life, while Golfo Dulce boasts a rainforest high above the clouds. Dive into the waters surrounding Isla de Coiba to view one of the Pacific Coast’s most amazing coral reefs. And transit the massive Panama Canal, one of the world's most stunning feats of engineering in a sailing yacht that lets you see it all.

It’s a match made in heaven, this. You on your pristine white ship, sails billowing, and these islands, so impossibly colorful, like a box of crayons gone mad. Wind Spirit is as at-home among Tahiti’s deserted motus and shallow lagoons as a tiare flower, and just as beautiful, furled or unfurled. Bliss knows no bounds. The sand massages your feet, warm water welcomes you like an old friend, ambition falls away as you watch the sun etch palm fronds on the beach. This is a place that is easy to love, difficult to leave, as so many before you have discovered. Come. Keep the promise you made to yourself so long ago.

A different set of rules applies in the Mediterranean. Time is measured in centuries, not minutes. The moon bathes in the canals of Venice. And Greek gods live on in a sky full of constellations. Surrounded by wonders like the Pietá and David, the magnificence of Cinque Terre, the culturally transcendent Alhambra, it is easy to believe there is something magical at work here. Something that kisses grapes and transforms them into divine wine, turns Riviera beaches to gold in the last light of day, and gifts you with a beautiful white yacht to see it all.

What can you make of a nation that can turn cold marble and cowhide into unbelievably lifelike statues and fabulously fashionable footwear? Imagine then, what Italy can add to an already exquisite voyage on a Windstar yacht – that work of art floating in the harbor. There are so many wonders here it’s hard to know where to look. They appear on every street corner, in every roundabout, on ceilings, in floors, in the landscapes of Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast. Even the place names – Gulf of Poets, Coast of Flowers – are lovely.

The Acropolis at sunset. A moonlight supper at the ancient Celsus Library in Ephesus. The Minoan eruption of Thira, where some say the ruins of Atlantis are hidden. Like arms joined in a syrtakis dance, one incomparable experience follows another across the Aegean and the Black Sea, and your white yacht gives you a front row seat to it all. Compare the rich blue of Santorini with that of the Iznik tiles in Istanbul’s Blue Mosque. Get deliciously lost in the labyrinthine lanes of medieval Rhodes. Cross the Dardanelles and Bosporus like the voyagers of old, waving first to one continent and then the other.

Words like moor, fjord, crag, and tundra were born in this land, because no existing vocabulary could adequately describe these extraordinary landscapes. These regions could just as easily have coined a term for ambrosial summer evenings at seaside cafés, Fabergé palaces of amber and gold, and storybook cities crisscrossed by canals and flower markets, all of which are here in abundance. But as your elegant yacht traces its way through enchanting fjords and forgotten archipelagos, you won’t need words. You are speechless.

Each of Windstar’s unique theme voyages offers you intimate access to some of the world's most exclusive destinations and events. From the exhilaration of watching Monte Carlo’s Grand Prix from a premier grandstand seat . . . to treating your palate to Europe’s best seafood in Spain’s Galicia region and world-famous wines in Bordeaux . . . these packages and voyages are custom made for exploration. Experience it all in Windstar's signature private yacht style.

Indulge yourself in leisurely, unscheduled days where time suspends in the magic of the sea. Sleep late. Dine early. Establish your own rhythm in sync with the waves and the arc of the sun and moon overhead. Watch the constellations drift and let your mind shake off all the cobwebs of shore. Feast on the impossible beauty of liquid sunsets, and let your soul dance with the dolphins in the spray off the bow.